Chris Rigg: Sunderland’s teenage midfield dynamo with ‘Roy Keane-esque nastiness’ being chased by Chelsea, Man Utd & Real Madrid

Rigg first moved into the spotlight in January 2023 when – amid a raft of injuries – he was included in the Sunderland squad for their FA Cup third-round tie at Shrewsbury aged 15 years and 203 days. The midfielder emerged from the bench late on with his side 1-0 down, becoming the club’s youngest-ever player in the process. He would would help the Black Cats complete a dramatic, last-ditch turnaround as they scored twice in injury-time to progress.

“He was put on the pitch because he deserves to be on the pitch,” then-manager Tony Mowbray told the BBC afterwards. “He’s got a wonderful left foot. He looks like someone who is going to play with that silkiness, with the passing on his left foot, and he looks to have that tiger in him as well. He wants to tackle everyone. It’s not a bad mix for a midfielder.”

“He’s been coming up to the first team, making us all look silly,” club captain Luke O’Nien added. “It’s incredible. I don’t know what I was doing at 15… I was nowhere near and never will be at his level.”

Rigg didn’t see any action in the Championship that season, but he did get more minutes in the FA Cup. He was a late substitute again in the next round against Premier League side Fulham at Craven Cottage and thought he’d created history by becoming the competition’s youngest-ever goal-scorer with a late winner, only to see the effort cruelly ruled out for an offside in the build-up.

A 16-year-old Rigg was in and around the first team in 2023-24, although he had a lengthy period of being overlooked as Mowbray and subsequently Michael Beale – who lasted just 12 games in charge – were sacked. He did, however, become Sunderland’s youngest-ever goal-scorer with a strike in the Carabao Cup defeat to Crewe Alexandra, and he also netted on his league debut cameo to round off a 5-0 win over Southampton.

It was in March 2024 under caretaker Mike Dodds that Rigg eventually made his full league bow and established himself as a starter as the Black Cats battled to arrest a slide down the table, and he has been a fixture of the starting line-up since Frenchman Regis Le Bris was appointed in the summer. That appointment coincided with Rigg signing his first professional contract with the club, ending some initial speculation by putting pen to paper on a three-year deal.

Fast-forward four months and Sunderland are sitting top of the Championship, thanks in no small part to Rigg’s contributions. Having started every game since the opening day, the 17-year-old midfielder has scored crucial goals against Middlesbrough, Leeds United and Luton Town to help open up a five-point gap to second-placed Burnley.

It was his audacious finish in the Tees-Wear derby against Boro that propelled him back into the wider footballing consciousness; after pouncing on a loose ball and rounding the goalkeeper with a croqueta, Rigg produced an outrageous backheel from an acute angle to squeeze it back inside the near post, blowing the roof off the Stadium of Light.

As you might expect, Rigg has been taking strides in his international career, too. Having played for England throughout the age grades, captaining the U16s and U17s, he is now part of the U18s set-up and has worn the armband with them as well.

A dynamic operator who will never shirk a tackle, matching fierce competitiveness with technical prowess and a wand of a left foot, Rigg seems to fit the cliche of ‘the type of player every manager loves’ perfectly. His track record of captaining his country suggests he is a leader, too.

“He is this warrior-like character, a personality and internal mechanism,” Mowbray told the BBC in November 2023. “He wants to win every tackle, every five-a-side, every contest he’s in, which is pretty unique in a footballer.

“I shouldn’t really say it, but it’s that Roy Keane-esque type of nastiness. He’s a nice kid, but not so much of a nice kid when he’s got his boots on and is on the pitch.”

In his own words, Rigg told The Athletic recently: “I could say I’m just a traditional midfielder. I love to attack, I love to defend. I can do both. I can add to it. And as you can see I love a tackle as well. Kind of a box-to-box midfielder.”

The player himself is focusing on keeping his feet on the ground. After signing his contract in the summer, he told The Chronicle: “I think just where I’ve grown up, I’ve been told if you’re not humble, you’re not going to be successful. That’s the main thing. I’d like to think that I am humble, but I’ve still got a long way to go.”

His manager, Le Bris, told Sky Sports recently: “I don’t know how he has that maturity, some players don’t have that at 30.”

Rigg is versatile, too, having made his breakthrough as a right-winger before moving inside to his preferred central role, where he has been starring alongside fellow prospect Jobe Bellingham, brother of Jude.

It is difficult to critique a player whose career is in its infancy, even if he did make his first-team debut almost two years ago. If you were nit-picking you could point to Rigg’s passing, with his completion percentage of 79.5 in the league relatively low. Discipline could be regarded as an issue, too, with Rigg having collected four yellow cards in 12 Championship games so far this term.

Neither of those things will be of particular concern to Sunderland, though, who will feel the midfielder is developing exactly as they had hoped. His manager hopes he can continue on this trajectory.

“It’s the consistency,” Le Bris said. “You can perform one, two, three, four, five games, but the reality of the high level is to perform for a whole season and multiple seasons. He has many things to develop, but this attitude is very interesting.”

Rigg has been likened to Napoli’s ex-Chelsea and Brighton man Billy Gilmour in the past, while he personally admires Luka Modric, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Zinedine Zidane.

The teenager possesses a lot of that quartet’s best traits, which arguably makes him most similar in profile to someone like Barcelona’s La Masia graduate, Gavi. Both midfielders combine tenacity with technical brilliance, control and ball-playing ability – more than happy to bite into tackles and engage in physical battles despite their diminutive frames; both of them stand at 5’7.

The Sunderland man would surely be delighted to reach that kind of level and play for one of the world’s biggest clubs, but that should be the benchmark, such is his potential. Of course, both are also one-club men at this early stage in their respective careers, although it remains to be seen how long that stays the case for Rigg.

Perhaps inevitably, Rigg is being linked with some of the Premier League’s big hitters as a young English player with huge potential, including Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and boyhood club Newcastle. The 17-year-old is even said to be drawing attention from abroad, too, as Real Madrid’s incessant and wide-reaching search for the next big thing supposedly stretches to the Stadium of Light. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they had an eye on Jobe Bellingham too, in fairness.

There is a sense that Rigg will have a decision to make at some point, with his new Sunderland contract only temporarily allaying fears that he will move on as the club have reportedly slapped a £30 million ($39m) price tag on him. However, the Black Cats’ excellent season to date makes things interesting, as they find themselves right in the hunt for automatic promotion – could Rigg be tempted to stay if they go up?

Speaking to The Chronicle in the summer about his ambitions, he said: “That’s where I want to be. I want to be at the very top.”